Amazon
by cathrl
Summary: Another day, another Spectran base... but no mission is easy.
1. Chapter 1

I just about never dream about my fandoms, so when I did, I had to write it. Though it turns out that my subconscious isn't too concerned about plotholes, so I had to do a fair amount of retconning...

Thanks to my husband for beta-reading.

 **Amazon**

"Our target is a very large Spectran base in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest," Anderson said. "This will be an infiltration mission."

"Doesn't Intelligence do those?" Jason asked, and instantly regretted it, as Anderson cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

"The base in question is remote, and we believe that it is used to train South American human recruits alongside Spectran troops. Intelligence do indeed 'do those', as you so eloquently put it. Their local operation has resulted in the successful infiltration of one operative, whose brief is to observe the Spectran procedures, get to know his fellow recruits, and advise on the best way to discourage people like them from signing up in the first place. He has submitted several reports along these lines. However, his last message said that he was extremely concerned about some new weaponry and he has since missed several scheduled contacts. This is inconsistent with our previous assumption of a low level training base located far enough from civilisation to discourage desertion. We need more information fast, and that makes it a job for G-Force."

Jason grimaced. Anderson had been brief and relatively informative. That couldn't be good.

Anderson carried on, the big screen behind him showing an aerial view of a lot of trees and not much else. "This is the area," he said.

It was obviously intended as a leading question, and Keyop obliged. "Don't see a base."

The screen split, with a second picture of the same area alongside the first, dated from a year earlier. More trees. But... different. Different in a regular pattern.

"I still don't see anything," Mark said.

"I do." Jason suspected Anderson was waiting for him to say so. Pattern recognition was something he was very, very good at. There were a number of big rectangles, a couple of circles, a surrounding perimeter - yes, it was very large. And very well disguised.

The rest of the team continued to frown at the screen, and Anderson took pity on them and pulled up a processed image. He'd been right about the shapes. He glanced at Anderson, and as he'd expected, the man was watching him for a reaction. He nodded, just once.

"How do you get that?" Tiny asked.

"Jason?"

"Those are the areas where the pictures are most different," he said. "You'd never see it from just one image, because it's all trees. My guess is that they dug them up and replanted after construction, but they didn't preserve the locations. I suspect it's mostly underground. How do they get in and out?"

"We don't know."

"Where's the nearest road?" Princess asked.

"Over a hundred miles away."

"One question," Jason said. "Why don't we take a quick trip and introduce it to a couple of Supers?"

Keyop grinned.

Anderson frowned. "That's not what Intelligence recommends."

 _Of course it isn't. That would be far too simple._ But the operative on the ground might have already paid for the recommendation with his life. Jason said nothing. When it came to it, Anderson could lay down whatever mission parameters he wanted. Intelligence could recommend until they were blue in the face. In the field, Mark was in charge, and if he felt blowing it up was the right answer, Jason was quite sure what would happen.


	2. Chapter 2

Jason fiddled with his newly issued oxygen mask as the Phoenix thundered south through the night sky. It didn't inspire confidence. Flimsy plastic, tiny capacity tank - it looked and felt like a child's toy. And had about as many safety features.

"This is the worst piece of kit we've ever been given," he said.

"Weight matters," said Keyop.

"Ten grams for a proper flow control valve?"

"Jason, we've been over this." Mark half-turned in his seat."If you want out, say so. You and Tiny can swap places for this mission."

 _Tiny, who's made, what, three high-altitude jumps ever, who isn't built for them at all, and who barely speaks any Spectran?_ "I'm good," he said reluctantly.

"Then quit whining. Is anyone not clear on their role?"

"I still think I should wait nearby," Tiny said.

"We've been over this too. There's no way they won't notice the Phoenix slowing to land, even if there was anywhere to land. Steady speed and course until you're over the horizon."

"Understood." It was reluctant, but Tiny would do it. Probably. He hadn't used 'acknowledged'.

The flight deck fell silent. Midnight their time, one in the morning at their destination. The plan was to infiltrate sometime between two and three a.m. local time, when base activity was minimal as anyone with any sense would be sound asleep.

Half his team-mates appeared to to be joining them. Princess's eyes were closed as she leant back in her chair, and he could hear quiet snuffling noises from Keyop. Mark, he couldn't see or hear, but he doubted his commander would be that relaxed minutes before deployment. Tiny was working. Jason himself was far too on edge even to doze. He looked again at the fragile piece of black plastic lying on his console. If it failed, he'd be dead from asphyxiation before he fell far enough to be able to breathe.

 _Maybe Tiny should take this one._

 _No, you're far more qualified for it than he is. Pull yourself together, man!_

And the cockpit lights shaded from dim white to a slightly brighter red glow - not so good for piloting by, rather better for preserving night vision. "Five minutes to drop," Tiny announced.

Jason stood up and stretched, making sure he was relaxed and ready, and reached for the real, solid oxygen mask which was built into his console. If only he could jump with this one. No such luck. But even G-Force weren't immune to decompression sickness. Five minutes breathing pure oxygen would flush the nitrogen from his bloodstream. For anyone unimplanted, it would have been fifty. He was glad it wasn't. Pure oxygen made him rather more light-headed than he liked to admit.

Now that the mission was as good as started, his nerves were gone. Normally they'd have been checking equipment. Today it was infiltration and they were taking nothing except what they could carry in the Spectran uniforms they'd be detransmuting into as soon as they landed. Not his favourite outfit.

At least he got to wear his own familiar birdstyle. They'd be coming down out of a dark night sky, with thankfully minimal moon, and the camouflage experts had shaken their heads sadly at three of the four birdstyles. Jason's muted colours were ideal, apparently. The other three had had a quick readjustment, shifting colours down the spectrum to be closer to black. Mark looked very different in charcoal grey, navy and deep red. Princess was even darker if anything, near-black and purple. Keyop's colours didn't really work, though none of them had said anything; the yellow was now a murky clay colour and he looked rather as if he'd rolled in the mud.

"Two minutes," said Tiny. "Good luck."

The bubble lift motor whined behind him, and Jason took his last few breaths of piped oxygen, readying the bailout mask for a quick changeover. Breathing standard air would not be good. Wasting the minimal supply of bailout oxygen would also not be good. Slow, steady deep breaths, and wait for Mark's call.

"Ready - go!"

One mask down, the other on, three strides to the bubble lift platform, and he secured the mask to his helmet as the others joined him.

Mark hit the lift button as he stepped onto the platform, and caught everyone's eye as they rose into the bubble. No need for words. Those glances meant that they were all good to go.

As the platform sealed against the edge of the hatch and the last glimmer of red light was shut off, Jason sensed rather than saw Mark crouched, intently watching the readout on his bracelet. This wasn't easy. The forest canopy was dense and impenetrable, and the base commander competent enough to catch ISO's man on the inside. They couldn't afford to make a lot of noise getting to the ground. Detailed analysis of the photos had shown one place - only one - where it looked as if there was enough of a break for them to slip through. Now it was Mark's job to hit that point, precisely, first time, from thirty thousand feet feet up, in the dark.

The bubble opened to a perfect moonless night, the Milky Way in a white stripe across the sky from east to west. On the ground, travelling at this speed would have knocked even them flat, but up here, with the air density only a third what it was at ground level, it felt like little more than a stiff breeze. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

Mark's arm came out as he stood up, a sweeping see-it-even-in-the-dark signal to be ready, and back in again. Jason counted to three, eyes glued on his commander's silhouette, and as Mark leapt up and right, he went up and left. The last thing any of them needed was to be sliced in half by the G-1's tailfin.

Up, out, watch the Phoenix's wing sliding by beneath him, then the dim glow from the engines receding into the distance, and then flex the birdstyle wings and head back to a point directly behind the Phoenix's direction of flight. They practiced this over and over in the simulators in far worse conditions than this. He knew Mark would be there. He knew Princess would be right behind him, and Keyop right behind Mark. They'd drop at terminal velocity into the darkness below and wait for the black void to resolve into hills and trees and snaking river channels, and for Mark to signal the end to freefall. Then it was birdstyle wings out, settle into their standard spiral pattern, and hope.

And, when it was starting to look as if there was nothing here except for solid greenery, below them was a huge dead tree, taller than anything around it, leafless branches white against the green. Around it, its descendants hadn't yet completely filled in the gap. Bullseye.

They landed, silent and perfect, in a circle as small as the gap in the canopy Mark had led them through. Not a word - they had no idea what sort of security was out there. Just sign language, massively exaggerated to compensate for the almost complete darkness under the trees. Numbers from their commander, counting down.

Jason cringed at what was coming next, but it was necessary. Detransmute into Spectran uniform. The things made his skin crawl, and not just because the thick inflexible material was about as far from birdstyle as it was possible to get. The ethics of dressing up as enemy troops were dubious to say the least. And if he was going to die, he didn't want it to be in Spectran green.

Mark's countdown reached one, and Jason slipped the fingers of his right hand under the bracelet strap, detaching it at zero. One flash, no noise, and four Spectran goons stood in the tiny clearing, slipping bracelets into pockets which no real Spectran uniform had.

From the woods to the south came a startled exclamation in what Jason rather thought was Portuguese, or maybe Spanish... and then a query in horrible Spectran. Score one for Intelligence, who had warned them that security was that tight.

"Who's there?"

"Deep patrol," Mark answered in rather better accented Spectran. "Did you see that flash?"

"It wasn't you?"

"Not us. Who are you?"

"Perimeter patrol." The speaker emerged, three others behind him, all with weapons similarly not-quite-aimed. "Nobody told me you were out here."

Mark snorted derisively. "And that surprises you?"

"I guess not, after they caught that infiltrator. Find anything?"

Jason shrugged - Intelligence's other recent tidbit of information was that lies told by one member of a group worked better if the others backed them up with body language. On humans, at any rate, and these goons were definitely human. Mark just said, "One unexplained flash, two minutes ago. No noise, nothing. I'm thinking it's some creature from this godawful forest."

"Or marsh gas," suggested the other.

Jason resisted the urge to snigger. Mark shrugged. "As good an explanation as any. There's nobody here - one of us would have seen them. Anyway, we're done for the night. Likely to be any food?"

"Sure, lots of it. Dinner was awful."

All four of them groaned - even Keyop and Princess could sound adult male at that level. Mark threw a moderately respectable Spectran salute, the rest of them followed suit more or less sloppily, and they headed past the patrol and towards the base, picking their way over tree roots. At least the ground was dry here, and well-trodden. Those patrols must be frequent.

Jason had no idea how his commander planned to find the entrance, and no intention of asking. Mark operating on instinct was best left to do his thing. If he wanted advice, he'd ask for it. Besides, the ground under foot was getting clearer and smoother as they went - he'd have called it a path now. Paths generally led to entrances.

The next patrol was a single soldier. Tall, moving fast and powerfully, he didn't as much as acknowledge the four goons standing to one side to make way for him.

Five minutes later they encountered another, and now Jason's instincts were going wild. It was far too dark to see features, but the second man's stride pattern was identical to the first - same length, same cadence, moving at the same speed...

"They're the same," he signed to Mark as soon as number two was out of sight.

Mark shrugged. "Twins?"

But they hadn't been twins, he was sure of it. They'd been exactly the same. And the third and fourth, only five yards apart, were also the same.

"Quads?"

"Maybe not."


	3. Chapter 3

Five minutes later they'd reached a confluence of paths - no clearing, but through the trees was a large, dimly lit rectangular opening protected from above by a tree-covered overhang. Out of it came a fifth soldier. He cruised past them at the same cadence as the others, and as they watched, he accelerated to an unfeasible speed and sprinted off after his fellows.

"Impressive, no?" said a voice from the entrance. "Password?"

"Wish I could move like that," Mark said. "I hear dinner sucked."

Just for once, this goon wasn't an idiot. "Password?" he repeated, advancing on them.

"Oh... I... wait a minute... no, that was yesterday's... was it -"

Mark didn't finish. Keyop had crept up the steps and round behind the guard, and knocked him cold with a textbook roundhouse kick to the head.

Jason caught him before he could hit the floor and relieved him of his gun. Mark and Princess took him under the arms, one side each, and half-dragged, half-carried him into the guardhouse.

"Password's 'superman'," Mark muttered shortly.

"No kidding." Jason continued to imitate the guard's pose: leaning against the wall with the gun tucked under one arm in a way which would be entirely useless against a surprise attack. Anyone else coming in or out would meet a guard behaving just like the last one.

"Ears on," came from Mark a couple of minutes later.

"I'm listening." Even if he wasn't apparently paying any attention to anything.

"There's a supersoldier program going on here. Just blowing this bit of it up isn't the answer. Princess and I will search their admin area. Keyop, get us an escape vehicle. Jason, find our infiltrator. We're extracting him. There's a base map in here, and passes."

"No explosions?" He was pretty sure he knew what the answer would be, but still...

"No explosions. I'd like to get out without a battalion of supersoldiers on our tail. If that's okay by you."

"Just checking." It might not have been his first instinct, but if he was extracting someone who'd been on the wrong end of Spectran questioning, Mark was probably right. In and out quietly and smoothly.

He waited until the others had gone before slipping inside the guardhouse. The Spectran lay curled behind and half under the desk; still unconscious, bound and gagged, he'd be invisible to a casual glance. Jason racked the gun in its obvious home next to the door and considered the map on the wall. Lots of detail at the level that you'd need if a call came in giving a location. He suspected the others would have photographed it for reference. He just stood there, relaxing and letting his subconscious absorb the details. Useful things, photographic memories.

The detention block was on the far side of the base, helpfully shaded on the map in red. The desk held several piles of the passes Mark had mentioned, colour coded to match, and the memo with today's password, and another one with tomorrow's. 'Brotherhood', or the closest word Spectran had to it. He planned not to be here to need it.

Jason took one of each type of pass, stacked them in colour-coded order, and tucked them into a pocket. Standard grade goons, who wore the uniform he'd been allocated, would only have one, so he'd need to make sure he could pull out the correct one discreetly. Mark might be the expert at playing Spectran squad leader, but Jason was pretty darn good at playing Spectran incompetent. If he did say so himself.

.

The base was quiet as he headed inside, resisting the urge to hide and sneak. _You're allowed to be here_ , he told himself. _You're hungry after the lousy dinner. You're looking for something better to eat_.

He paused at the entrance to the admin wing. All was quiet down the long corridor, the lighting set at out-of-hours emergency level just as it was everywhere else. Mark and Princess should be in there somewhere, but if they needed help, they were being remarkably quiet about it. He moved on.

Out of that building, across a tree-filled area, and the door on the other side needed his red pass. It opened silently and he moved inside, senses at their full implant-enhanced extent. It might be silent and deserted at the entrance but there must surely be people in here somewhere, in the detention cells, and a guard on duty watching them?

Ten yards forward and take the second corridor on the left. The door to the guardroom was on the right, before the bars and the cells beyond. Jason stepped inside, hopeful... and the guard sitting in front of the window, very much not asleep, glared at him.

"What are you doing here, soldier?"

"Hoping the prisoners' food is better than that slop we had this evening. Any spare?" He hoped to sound Spectran.

The guard shrugged towards the door. "Across the hall. Why the hell do we have to eat human crap? They want to join us, at least they could eat our food. It's a sad day when the detention block rations are better than the messhall."

"Thanks, friend," Jason ground out. He took a single step towards the door, and then whirled round and unleashed a right hook to the temple. The Spectran crumpled forward silently onto the desk. Still breathing, but he'd be out for a good long while.

So, tension between the Spectran and human goons? That was very interesting.

He took what he hoped was the master key from the unconscious guard, stepped back into the corridor, and flipped all the lights on.

"So, boys," he said with the strongest, most colloquial Spectran accent he could manage," who wants to come spar with the experts?" He didn't know what the supersoldiers were called either officially or casually - the map hadn't been that helpful - and he didn't dare use the wrong term. Unlocking the door in the bars, he pointed to the occupant of the nearest cell: a fat, balding, and clearly Spectran native, who was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "Someone who's not one of us, maybe?"

A slow smirk from his target, and his thinner and equally Spectran cellmate. "Cell six."

To first glance, cell six was deserted. The pile of blankets on the floor was unmoving. Mindful of a suspicious pair of eyes from cell five opposite, Jason strode in and aimed a non-landing kick at the pile.

"You. Up."

The pile twitched and opened up to reveal a man not much older than Jason, maybe mid twenties, definitely human, clearly in a lot of pain. Ribs, at a guess. Jason hauled him to standing as gently as he could while making it look rough.

"So, human scum, ready to fight a few more rounds?"

"Slimy rat," the other gasped unsteadily. An ISO codephrase. He'd been right - this was Grant's infiltrator.

His blow would have looked like a sucker punch to the ribs from outside the cell. In fact he connected with the wall, hard enough to be audible. He'd expected nothing from Grant's man, but he managed a gasp and a faked flinch which turned into a real one. Definitely broken ribs, at least one collarbone, and maybe the forearms too. He'd been worked over big time.

"Move," Jason spat out, and took a handful of prison jumpsuit at the small of the man's back. It couldn't be comfortable, but it would take at least some of his weight, hopefully without hurting him too much. He doubted the man could make himself move at any speed, not with that level of injury, and this had to look good.

He frogmarched his 'prisoner' out past the bars. "Night, boys," he said cheerfully, returned the cell corridor lights to their dim night position, locked the grill, and forced the other to keep going at the same uncomfortably rapid speed round the corner and for twenty yards or so beyond. Then he slowed and eased the man to lean against the wall, continuing to steady him.

"Talk to me," he said in English.

"You're one of Grant's men?" The accent was Central American, probably Spanish-speaking, though the English was fluent. "There's a supersoldier program here. They're cyborgs. Seriously tough." He grimaced. "You wouldn't guess it now, but I can handle myself. Security teams have no chance against these guys. G-Force, maybe, but they can't be everywhere."

He swallowed painfully. "I have the program details. Swallowed the memory stick. I... you'll need to cut it out of me. I don't think I'll be walking out of here."

Jason stared at him. "You want me to... No. We're the good guys. What's your name?"

"Juan. Juan Antonio Sanchez Uran."

"Juan will do for now. I'm getting out of here and you're coming with me. You'll need to walk a bit."

Juan looked up at him - he was maybe five-ten, wiry, and Jason had the suspicion that he'd seen him before, in a karate gi. Mark's grading, he thought. No, he wasn't boasting when he said he could handle himself. And from the look on his face, he'd clearly expected Jason to take him up on his offer to cut the information out of his stomach. Man, that was cold. Had he recognised the Condor and bought into the rumours, or was it something that Grant's teams considered normal?

"I can try," Juan said, and grimaced. "Do you have any painkillers?"

"Not here. You'll have to hang on." He put an arm round the other's shoulders, eased him away from the wall, and went back to his previous technique of supporting him with a fistful of jumpsuit twisted behind his shoulders. There were painkillers in the Phoenix, but G-Force didn't carry them, since they couldn't take them. Someone should have thought of that, given the mission parameters.


	4. Chapter 4

Mark and Princess were waiting at the arranged point, between the vehicle stores and the base's side gate. They could have been any two goons out for a smoke or to talk, and Juan whimpered in terror or pain as they both turned to the new arrivals.

"Slimy rat," said Jason, knowing they'd both understand the significance. "Cyborg supersoldiers. Details on a memory stick in his gut."

Mark nodded, opened his mouth to answer... and stopped. In his pocket, Jason's bracelet was vibrating in the pattern which meant it was from Keyop. _Problem. Problem. Problem_. Not good. Mark's hand moved to his pocket, and Jason followed suit. Time to put the bracelet back on and see what his commander wanted them to do next. If Keyop had got himself into trouble...

A Spectran open-top transport came round the corner, one of the unarmed low altitude fliers, three rows of seats, three seats per row. Jason tensed, relaxed as he realised that the driver was Keyop, and then tensed again as he noticed the passenger. Tall, impassive, supremely well-built, and identical to the ones they'd met earlier.

 _Cyborg_.

He shifted his grip on Juan, waiting for Mark's signal. He'd toss him at Princess and leave her to get him onto the transport while he and Mark disposed of the cyborg. The transport came closer. No signal. Slowed to a halt. No signal. Clearly Mark's plan wasn't what his would have been.

"Captain," Keyop said in horribly accented Spectran, "my orders have been changed. I am to take the cyborg unit to reference point thirty-seven. Your mission has been superseded."

"Thirty-seven?" said Mark. "That's on our way anyway. Get in, men. Hurry!"

Jason lifted Juan, decidedly ungently, and almost threw him into the the back row of seats, as far from the cyborg as possible, before climbing in alongside him. Was there any chance that the cyborg wouldn't have noticed him? If only Keyop had given them more warning. He could easily have taken the cell supervisor's uniform. Much less obvious than a prison jumpsuit. Far too late now.

Princess was in the middle row of seats, apparently thinking the same way Jason was since she'd positioned herself directly between Juan and the cyborg. Mark was alongside her, behind it/him/whatever term you should use for the things. "Go!" he snapped at Keyop, in far better Spectran. "Checkpoint thirty-seven. We don't have all night!"

The transport lifted and shot forward, far from smoothly, and the cyborg half-turned.

"Bad pilot," it - he, probably, given the voice - said.

"Yes," said Mark. "He's new."

"Lousy human pilot."

"Yes."

His focus shifted, first to Princess, then to Jason, then, inevitably, to Juan.

"Prisoner. Why is he here?"

Jason dared to glance sideways. They were ten feet off the ground, under the tree canopy, and Keyop had gone straight over the exit gate without stopping. Not a bad choice, but this was only going to end one way.

The cyborg shifted his focus back to Mark. "You. Captain. Why is the prisoner here?"

 _So much for the hope they might be dumb robots. No wonder Juan thinks we need to get as much intel on them out as possible_.

"We're taking him to be worked over by your friends some more," Jason said. That made no sense, but what they needed now was time. Just a little bit of confusion. Make the thing shift focus instead of concentrating on one person's answers. Every few seconds bought them dozens of extra yards distance from the base. Keyop had the hang of the transport now and was whipping them through the trees at high speed, trunks and branches barely visible in the dim and narrow beam of the headlights. It was still nowhere near dawn, but there was some light now. Enough to see outlines and movements.

Enough to see Mark's arm slung casually across the back of the seat, and his fingers tapping in one of their less-often used codes. _Continue without me. Acknowledge_.

As plans went, that was truly lousy. But Mark was in command and discussion was impossible. Jason leant forward and tapped twice on the other's middle finger. _Received and understood_.

"Captain," repeated the cyborg, with a definite note of complacent superiority in his voice. "Why is the prisoner -"

Mark exploded forward, locked both arms around the cyborg's torso, and hurled both of them over the side of the transport. There was the snapping and rustling of two bodies falling through foliage, and then the sounds of a struggle receding into the background.

"Keep going, Keyop," Jason said softly.

"But -"

"That's an order. _Mark's_ order." Jason had realised a long time ago that Keyop was far less likely to disobey an order from his childhood idol.

"But -" That was Princess.

"We can pick him up later. Juan has information that we need to get out, and he's badly hurt. Mark will be fine."

"You're making a mistake," Juan said, quietly and painfully. "Those things are fast and hard and and they don't go down no matter how well you hit them. I know that's the Eagle down there, I know how good he is, and he's still in trouble. The cyborgs are linked. Right now, five others are heading for them at top speed."

 _And we've seen just how fast that is_. "Keyop, turn us around."

"But Mark -"

Jason sighed. "Mark didn't have all the information. _Do it_. Primary mission is still to get Juan back to ISO."

"Understood," said Princess.

The transport lurched as Keyop threw it into a tight circle, looping round one of the bigger trees and heading back down the route they'd just come. Beside him, Juan groaned. Jason sympathised. This couldn't be a fun ride with broken ribs. He wasn't much enjoying it with all his intact.

"Ten seconds," said Keyop. It wasn't necessary. Jason could hear the sounds of a struggle getting louder. Spectra had never had anyone who could stand up to Mark for more than ten seconds before, not one on one. This wasn't good at all. Decisive action was needed and he'd deal with the fallout later.

He transmuted as he leapt from the transport. No way they wouldn't see him coming, but that was too bad. And Mark would know exactly what it was, and hopefully it would give him an advantage.

He landed on his feet in a relatively clear area, five yards from a titanic struggle which paused just briefly as he hit the ground. The cyborg appeared undamaged. Mark had lost his Spectran headdress. There was so little light that even his visor could give him almost no details, but Mark's face didn't look right. Black eye, maybe a split lip? Maybe worse - a fractured cheekbone? He wasn't moving right, either. Left shoulder and right knee. The cyborg had done that to _Mark_ , inside two minutes?

 _Don't give up the advantage of surprise_. Three accelerating steps forward and he kicked it in the head as hard as he could, every ounce of implant strength behind it. The thing didn't even flinch.

He hit it again. And again. It barely seemed to notice, except that now its attention was on him rather than Mark. _Come on, Commander. I've given you a shot. If you don't have a plan, I'm not sure we're going to win this one_.

He blocked a blow which would have taken his head off, feeling the shock all the way up his arm. Blocked the second fist coming in lower. Kicked it in the ribs this time, just in case it was more vulnerable there. Caught the next blow, tried to divert the momentum and have the thing damage its own joints, and felt his own shoulder protest as it twisted away. _Dammit, Mark and I have the same moves, and it's learning fast_. He let go just in time to keep his shoulder in its socket, but that had _hurt_.

 _What haven't I tried?_ He spun into a high reverse kick, catching the thing under the chin. That did at least rock its head back temporarily, but it came for him again, fast and deadly, and he was out of ideas and staggering backwards...

It dropped as if the strings had been cut. Mark stood behind it, wires trailing from his right hand.

"Thank you," he said. "Tougher than I thought."

"And how." Jason stood up straight, shakier than he'd have admitted. "Plan?"

"Take this with us."

"Juan says they're all linked and the others will be coming."

Mark's head came up, expression unreadable in the dark, and he used his right hand to lift his left wrist to his mouth. "G-4, pickup _now_."

Jason strained implant-enhanced hearing to its limits. There was the whine of the transport's motor, not far off and getting louder, but from the other direction there was crashing and tearing, the sounds of something large, strong and fast coming straight for them. Several somethings.

"G-4, step on it!" he added. To Mark, he said, "Shoulder out?"

"Yeah. Do it."

No time to be gentle. One hand on the other's upper arm, the other against his ribs, pulled hard and twisted. There was a horrible grating, then the pop of the joint sliding back into place.

Mark swore, just once, then brought his arm over and transmuted. The usual bright flash, and there was a roar of... triumph? fury? from the forest behind them. It was very close.

 _If they get here before Keyop does..._

The transport came to a halt, still hovering, just as the trees on the far side of the clearing began to shake. Something was right at the edge, tangled in the vines, but they'd never hold it for long.

No need for orders. He and Mark hurled the deactivated cyborg into the centre row of seats and dived in themselves.

"Go, go, go!" Mark shouted as a cyborg burst from the trees, trailing vines, and another, moving much faster, threw itself across the clearing at the rear of the transport.

 _If it gets on here we're all dead_. Jason grabbed for a handhold on the back of the rear row of seats, threw himself across the rear panel and kicked it in the head with both feet as hard as he could. Its hand flailed for the set back, came up short, reached again. The second hand struggled for a grip on the plating behind the seat. Jason kicked it again and it was gone, falling with a crash to the ground. Momentum was taking him after it, his hand losing its grip on the seat back, following it down with nothing to stop him -

A hand locked round his right wrist and slowed his slide. A second hand caught him just above the elbow. Jason lay sprawled across the back of the transport, gasping with reaction, and listening to the sounds of furious pursuit fade into the darkness.

"Thank you," he said eventually.

"You're welcome." Princess kept her tight grip on his arm while he wriggled up the back plates and crawled over into the back seat.


	5. Chapter 5

Juan's breathing was a lot worse than it had been; shallow, unsteady and miserable. Sitting in a vibrating Spectran troop transport must be hell with fractured ribs, never mind how Keyop had been throwing it around the scenery. He fumbled under the seats and came up with two chocolate bar wrappers and a tissue.

"Anyone seen a first aid kit?"

Mark passed one back from the front row. No drugs he recognised, or thought were intended for humans at all. Bandages were bandages, though. Best practice these days might be not to strap broken ribs, but in the short term it should help. Certainly Juan didn't object to being strapped up over the top of the prison jumpsuit, and his breathing did steady somewhat as his ribs were immobilised.

There was a quiet discussion going on in the front, about speed, and range, and observability, and maximum height, and whether there might have been a mecha based there (not on the plans they'd seen, Mark pointed out before Jason needed to), and after about half an hour, Mark went to the bracelet.

"G-5, we need pickup. Treetop scoop - we're in a nine seater open top Spectran transport with a casualty. Ceiling of this thing's about a hundred feet. Briefly."

"Understood. With you in ten."

Jason raised his eyebrows as the connection dropped. "Beyond the horizon?"

"You're a fine one to be talking about not following orders. G-4, I'd be much happier above the canopy."

Jason was much happier below it, where he could at least see the ground even if he wasn't on it. He was unsurprised that Mark felt differently. Pilots tended to prefer clear air and a full view of the sky. This sort of intermediate just-about-flying wasn't something they used often, but when they did, Keyop was the expert, no question.

"How high's the canopy here?" he asked, finishing one set of bandaging and starting another.

"Ninety feet," said Keyop flatly. "A hundred in places. More for the tall trees."

"And the ceiling of this thing is a hundred feet?" This was sounding like a very bad idea.

"Do your job, G-2," Mark said. "Let us do ours."

He'd have been a lot happier if his job right now had been gunner, not paramedic. And if there wasn't something on the edge of his hearing. More crashing in the undergrowth. Surely not?

"G-1, we have company imminent," he warned.

Mark stood up in the passenger seat, took a long, careful look behind them, and even in the dark Jason could see him go white. "G-4, prepare to go above the canopy on my signal," he said quietly. Into the bracelet, he said, "G-5, where are you?"

"Two minutes."

"We don't have two minutes. Full speed scoop. That's an order."

"But what if I miss!"

"Don't miss. How long?"

"I need a target!"

Mark hit his bird scramble. "G-4, now! G-5, come get us!" He dropped to a crouch in the footwell, and Jason pulled Juan down as far as he could, shielding him with the birdstyle wings and trying to hold him steady and supported and not do too much additional damage as broken bones shifted. This was an insanely dangerous manoeuvre. Even a fractional error in timing or distance and the Phoenix's lower ramp would shred the transport like a cheesegrater. If it missed altogether, the jet wash would flip them and they'd be on the jungle floor going hand to hand with those things. He really didn't want either to happen, and there was precisely nothing he could do to help.

The transport juddered as it hit the canopy. Leaves and small branches whipped over and past them, but nothing large enough to do damage. And then they were out into a pale dawn, and as the transport's low-altitude engines lost the battle to keep them climbing, there was a roar from behind, a flash of red and blue overhead, and Jason tucked his head down, hung on, and hoped.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter somewhat rewritten after Nephedra put her finger on what it was that was nagging me about the last section - thank you!

* * *

A bang, a jolt, the shriek of protesting steel and the smell of scorched paint. And they stopped with a jerk. Right way up. Still intact.

"G-5, we're in," he heard Mark say, utterly calm. "Close the ramp."

He opened his eyes to the cargo bay. of the Phoenix. Greenery littered the floor, failing to hide the scrapes from hatch to back wall, where they'd stopped. Several unidentifiable chunks of metal lay among the leaves. The transport had done its job, but Jason doubted it would fly again.

"Nice work," he said to Keyop, who had folded his arms on the console and dropped his head onto them.

"Not much margin for error." The kid's voice shook.

"None at all," said Mark. "G-3, G-4, I want the cyborg secured, and I mean secured. If it has any self-repair capability at all I do not want it loose on the ship. G-2, you and I will help Juan to the flight deck. I want his advice on what to do about the base."

It was only twenty yards from the cargo hold to the flight deck, but Juan was finished by the time they reached it. His breathing had gone back to unsteady shallow gasps, and as they entered, Tiny turned and was out of his seat and straight over to them.

"He needs to be in the medical bay, G-1 - he's not fit to be here."

"He's the source of our information. Juan, I need to know if there's still a reason not to blow that base to hell."

Juan tried to answer, caught his breath hard and sagged against Jason. There really wasn't a good way to support someone with that many broken bones, and Jason knew he was hurting him. Less than letting him fall to the floor, though.

"Back," said Tiny. "Sit him down." They lowered Juan into the nearest jumpseat, against the back wall of the flight deck. His eyes were closed and he was clearly fighting for self-control.

"G-5, I need him conscious and lucid."

Tiny glanced at Jason, then back at Juan, concern all over his face. Jason knew what he was thinking. Conscious and lucid meant hurting. Right now, letting him pass out was far and away the kindest thing they could do, and Jason disagreed about the medical bay - fractured ribs hurt even more lying down than sitting up.

"Ribs and collarbones," he said to Tiny. "Maybe more." They simply didn't have time for a discussion, much less an argument. Just the bare facts.

Tiny nodded, acknowledgement that this was his call. "G-2, IV painkiller. G-1, watch the screens." Tiny didn't give orders often, but when he did, Jason listened. When he gave orders to _Mark_ , everyone listened.

.

Jason came back with the syringe - labelled with both 'painkiller' and a generic drug name he didn't recognise beyond it being a modern opiate - to find Keyop flying the Phoenix, Princess alongside him in Mark's seat, and Mark not quite dancing impatiently at the door. _Don't you dare criticise me for taking so long_ , he thought. _I'd lay money you wouldn't be able to put your hand straight on it either_.

Tiny said nothing either. He had an injection site near the left elbow already swabbed. Jason gave him the pre-prepared syringe and took a firm grip on Juan's arm above and below it. The man was massively beyond his pain threshold, that was clear, and at that point you didn't rely on someone's ability to keep still no matter how tough they'd shown themself to be.

"Here we go," said Tiny, and inserted the needle smoothly and easily, straight into the vein.

Jason expected him to inject maybe half if it - the doses they carried were intended for the team in an emergency, where the first thing any drug had to do was get past the filtering effect of the implant. But Tiny didn't stop until he'd emptied the entire syringe. _There's no way Juan will stay conscious_ , he thought. _Tiny's made a mistake_. Then, _No, it wasn't a mistake. It was deliberate_.

"You'll feel a hell of a lot better quite quickly," Tiny said, in a clear, medical professional tone that Jason barely recognised. "Juan, is it?"

"Yeah." His eyes opened. "Yeah...that's pretty quick-acting. Sorry, Commander - you asked me something? I didn't..."

"Don't apologise," Tiny said easily, not giving Mark a chance to get involved. "Did you recommend not destroying the base initially?"

"Yes." There was some professionalism back in the tone. Not being in agony did that for you.

"Is that still your recommendation?"

"I don't know." Professionalism, but also a losing attempt to fight against the drug. Shock on Mark's face as he realised what Tiny had done. No surprise at all on Tiny's.

"Let's take this one step at a time. Do you recommend we go back in, and if so, why?"

"No. Got everything you need, swallowed..." The eyes were closing fast, and the voice slurring, and it was pretty darn obvious that he wouldn't be answering any more questions.

Mark stared at Tiny as if he'd just dropped from the sky, before visibly pulling himself together. "Your recommendation, G-2?"

Jason grinned - this was much more like it. "The one person who said we shouldn't just blow the place up now says we shouldn't infiltrate. He's got a shedload of information on a memory stick in his gut, I expect you and Princess have a pile more, and we have a deactivated cyborg in the cargo hold. I say we blow it sky high."

"I agree. Arm weapons. G-5, we'll discuss this later. Now I'd like you at the helm."

Tiny had a finger on Juan's pulse. "He needs someone watching him to check he keeps breathing."

Mark raised his voice. "G-3? Come take care of our passenger for a while. Is that good enough, _Doctor_?"

 _He's really teed off_. As the closest thing the team had to a qualified medic, Tiny had a medical override, but Jason was struggling to think of a situation where he'd used it at all. Let alone blatantly and deliberately done something completely opposite to what Mark had asked.

He'd never had to get between these two. Now, for five seconds, he genuinely thought he might have to. Then Tiny gave a curt nod and headed for his seat at the front, Mark followed him, and a wide-eyed Keyop and Princess got out of the pilots' seats in a hurry.

Jason took his own seat, arming the weapons Mark had asked for. Two standards and a Super, a full load. The base plan superposed itself on his vision at a thought. The Super was for the research labs, where the supersoldiers would be based, made, stored, whatever you called it for cyborgs. One standard missile in the vehicle centre, one centred on the armoury. If that didn't look like enough chaos, there would be time for a reload, but he suspected it would be plenty.

"Take us in slow," Mark said. He sounded like himself again; confident and in command, Tiny's insubordination forgotten for now. Jason focused on the job at hand. He knew where to put the missiles within the base. Now he just needed to know where the base was.

He'd barely opened his mouth to ask when target markers appeared on the viewscreen at the front, superposed over the endless indistinguishable trees. Four points forming a rough rectangle. If that defined the corners of the base, basic extrapolation told him where to aim within it.

"One minute to target," Tiny said.

"Ready." Fingers over the controls, watching the crosshairs slowly come together over his chosen targets, he waited until the perfect moment.

 _Rather disappointing_ , he thought. A bit of a shudder in the treetops from the Super, even less of an effect from the standard to the vehicle compound. Nothing at all from the third. And then the whole area rippled, as if a huge wave had passed through the earth, and moments later the Phoenix rocked as the shock hit. Even in the flight deck, they heard a thunderous boom, and a whole series of secondary explosions followed.

"Nice one," Mark said almost a minute later, when the Phoenix finally steadied.

"That was the armoury. I guess they had something good in there."

Keyop left their gun camera trained on the base as they headed away. It looked different now. Smoke curled upward, and Jason had the impression that the trees would have been flattened except that they didn't have enough room to fall over. Yes, they'd had something good in there. G-Force had blown up a lot of bases. It was rare that anything went up violently enough to shake the Phoenix.

"Okay," said Mark finally, as the smoke receded into the distance. "That'll do. Tiny, do we need to detour to a hospital?"

That was about as close to 'I've realised you did the right thing' as Tiny was ever going to get, and thankfully Tiny had the common sense not to comment on it.

"Better to get him back to ISO. If Spectra realise we extracted him and he's somewhere they can get to..." There was a pause. "Mark, are you okay?"

Tiny was flying the ship, and didn't have time to play medic. "Watch my screens," Jason told Keyop and headed to the front to check on whatever Tiny was reacting to.

"I'm fine," Mark said as Jason knelt alongside his seat. But his face, what was visible of it below the visor, was very pale.

"Like hell you are. How bad did that thing smash you up?"

That got a grimace. "Bad enough to be sore tomorrow, and I think I broke my hand on its neck plating. Misjudged where the joint was when I went for the wiring. And no, I'm not detransmuting to show you. Birdstyle's holding it in place just fine for now." The hand lay supported on his left forearm. It didn't look too misshapen, which was probably good enough. He'd been using it only a couple of minutes earlier, though, and functioning a whole lot better than he was now. Which meant...

"Implant out of juice?" That would explain the temper, too. It wasn't much fun when the mental equivalent of "two percent battery remaining" appeared in the corner of your subconscious during a mission, suspecting but not knowing just how rough you were going to feel when the implant hit zero.

"Pretty much."

"We're an hour from home," Tiny said.

"I know. I'll cope."

 _And in the last twenty seconds you've gone from being fine to coping_. Jason locked eyes with his commander. "You rest. I'll take it from here."

Mark didn't argue, which said a lot for how banged up he was and how little the implant was now helping, and Jason returned to his seat. _Step on it_ , he sent to Tiny's console as soon as he sat down.

 _Already did. ETA 45_.

No fool, their pilot. But still - this could have gone a lot worse. They'd extracted the man they'd been sent to extract. They'd discovered what was going on at the Spectran base. They had a complete deactivated cyborg, which was definitely a bonus. And the base had to be in ruins after an explosion that size. One broken hand was minor beside that. Mark would sleep it off in a couple of days once his implant was recharged and doing its job, and then he'd be back to normal. And in the meantime...

In the meantime, Mark's second-in-command would have to give the verbal report at the debrief, and would doubtless be expected to produce the written report on the mission too.

The sun came up over the Caribbean as the Phoenix streaked north, and Jason glared at the viewscreen, barely even seeing it. Some missions just sucked.

* * *

Author's note:

So what did I actually dream, you're (probably not) wondering. Well, it was the spiralling freefall down out of the Phoenix (which, to be honest, my subconscious almost certainly borrowed from the opening credits), them all having dark variants on birdstyle, and the section in the transport, from the cyborg realising something dodgy's going on up to the point when they're all back on it and accelerating away but can still hear that they're being followed. Sadly, my alarm then went off. I'd have liked to see what my subconscious thought the conclusion should be.

How does Juan know who Mark is? He's one of the (unnamed) sparring partners from _Black Belt -_ I feel like he's one of the last two.


End file.
